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What they said: Dan Quinn

Here is some of what Seahawks defensive coordinator Dan Quinn had to say to the media today:

On how difficult is it to prepare for a team when you haven’t seen their quarterback: “Generally it is. One thing that we do know is that I was with Kellen Clemens when we were together in New York so I do have some familiarity with him and I know the talent that he has. He’s been with Brian Schottenheimer a long time, all the way from 2006 in New York and the years there to the two years that he’s been with him in St. Louis. We certainly know about him and what he can do. We just had to go back and find tape because he’s played in games in the preseason and last season and that kind of stuff too. So that’s part of the process.”

On Kellen Clemens: “He’s really a tough, competitive, smart guy, and they may say he’s a little bit of a gun slinger. You can see that because like most competitive tough guys they want to keep fighting, and keep seeing if he can make the throw and get it in. Those are things that I remember about him form our time together in New York.”

On what challenges their offense presents: “I think you start with their receivers. They really have some speed outside. For us we know that’s a challenge because they have some different guys with different skillsets. They have some tall guys that can get long speed, and some shorter guys who are quick and can go in and out. One of the things that help our team from a weekly standpoint is that we get to go against our offense. In each practice we have some periods that we go against them for competitive time where it’s just good on good. Whether it’s one on ones, nine on seven, team period, you can see where we would just do one where we go against each other at the end. All teams have unique players so for us tall guys like Sidney Rice and guys you can play inside at the slot on our team they’re certainly good guys for us to match up against our own team as well.”

On the defensive line rotation and what is the benefit of that: “I think it’s more a part of the plan. I just know you need to have rushers at the end of the game to be able to finish. We always want to be cognizant of that to say when it comes time to have a chance to finish you got to have rushers who can do that, and the fresher they are the better they can play. We’d like to get guys involved if you’re up we’d like them to play and be involved. Not just developing these guys, but we have a lot of confidence in the guys that go in. so for us it’s more a function of it being by design that we want to rotate in players, especially at that position. Other positions not quite so much, but at that position we feel like that is an important part of it.”

On Chris Clemons being affected by less snaps and how does that help him: “The main thing is where you have a chance to have some of these guys rush on third down where they can come into the game and be a little fresher, and again for me at the end of the half, at the end of the game having so many rushers available for you. That’s one of the things that I feel is important so that’s why I try to stay cognizant of that through how we prepare and how we play with the guys.”

On K.J. Wright: “The one thing to me that he has is he’s got really good football instincts. Whether we play him at Will linebacker or whether we play him at Mike, we can play behind the line. There’s like a real presence that he has as a standup linebacker. That was one of the reasons that we moved him from Sam where he played on the end of the line last year to where he’s playing behind the line. So for us just to have a guy who can play two spots and not miss a beat really says about how hard he prepares, and how much he’s in to the way we do things for him to play into two spots. He steps in and plays the game, and does a good job at it.”

On where can the defense improve: “For us it’s third down. It’s an area that we’re constantly trying to look at and strive for. So for us this week that was one we certainly looked at to see which distances are we better in, and how can we play that better. Each week you kind of take a look at the things that we want to do better and keep evaluating our own self, and our own scheme. For us that was an important one”